The present application relates generally to an improved data processing apparatus and method and more specifically to mechanisms for providing a graphical user interface tool for system-wide topology and performance monitoring with per-partition views.
A logical partition, commonly called an LPAR, is a subset of computer's hardware resources, virtualized as a separate computer. In effect, a physical machine can be partitioned into multiple logical partitions, each hosting a separate operating system instance. A hypervisor, also referred to as a virtual machine manager (VMM), is one of many hardware virtualization techniques that allow multiple operating systems to run concurrently on a host computer. The hypervisor presents to the operating systems a virtual operating platform and manages execution of the operating systems. Multiple instances of a variety of operating systems may share the virtualized hardware resources. Hypervisors are installed on server hardware whose only task is to run operating systems in LPARs.
In a large virtualized machine environment, many tools exist for performance monitoring. These tools monitor performance on a physical level or a logical level. Each tool generates data that can be viewed in a user interface resulting in multiple disparate output displays.